Mike Hayes shares the importance of getting to know each other within your young adult community. Gathering basic information (name, contact information, interests, connection to church in the past) from young adults will help build a young adult friendly parish:
Name tag Sundays, parish welcome weekends, young adults serving on the parish life committee, and parishioners specially trained to look out for young adults and invite them into deeper relationships within the parish can all help. Make it easy to register in the parish (can people complete at least the initial steps online?) and when a new young adult shows up, get this basic information even if they’re not ready to register just yet. Find out what their connection to church has been. Did they come from a great young adult ministry somewhere else or have a strong campus ministry experience? Invite them to share what they enjoyed about that experience and help them build the bridge between that encounter and their current one with this new community. Young adult friendly parishes DO learn the names, occupations, and desires of young people coming to their parishes.
Find more tips for developing a young adult friendly parish in the Essentials section of Young Adult Ministry in a Box.
